B
efore you ask, it looks amazing. Magical, even. At times, with neon blazing over the storm-sodden Vinewood streets, puddles dancing with rain splats - as the full spectrum of PS4 particle effects and lighting coalesce - it looks like a tiny miracle: easily the best-looking new-gen game yet. At others, it's 'merely' impeccably high-res and comfortably familiar.
Above all, its GTAV stretched to its extremes: the violent crescendos more vivid, abrupt and dislocating; yet its peaceful, almost transcendental moments, more ethereal and serene - oh, and there's a new First Person mode that might just change the way we play GTA games, but in the rush to describe so much bewildering, eclectic *stuff*, it's possible to forget.
We were treated to a two-hour hands-on with GTAV on PS4 only days ago, and our best attempt to capture the highs, lows and sheer volume of information, however microscopic, can be found in the special episode of GTAVoclock below. It's almost 60 mins, sure, but you can always skip between sections using the time guide below, and we'll do our best to recap our overall impressions here.
There's little need to recap the volume of new content awaiting those who played the PS3 / 360 version and are upgrading to new-gen. It's best-handled by
Rockstar's very own Newswire , or in
our GTA V next-gen summary. Either way, we got to sample very few of the new side-missions, like Michael's film-noir Murder Mystery, or Franklin's Wildlife Photography Challenge. Not that Rockstar stopped us, but asked us not to spoil anything too pertinent so close to the game's November 18 release.
If it's surprises you're after, our hands-on threw up plenty, in vintage GTAV fashion. Even when you adjust to the incredible new visuals, at 1080p and 30fps no less (trust us, 30 fps is plenty, before we all enter 60fps-or-bust therapy groups, with the frame-rate notably fluid, even at its explosive peaks), the game keeps catching you off guard.
A particularly fine moment is being run over by a speeding truck in first-person, watching the world rotate and blur, like tipping your head back on a rollercoaster. Peer down with the right stick and you can see your feet, your body and even your phone, now a full 3D object, not a 2D icon. Selfies have never looked more stupidly real, even if character's faces are still a fissure below the uncanny valley, with the ability to blush, raise eyebrows and other relative subtleties.
First-person options are bogglingly extensive, with options for Assisted Aim, Semi-Assisted Aim, Free Aim and much, much more.
You can set first-person targeting with third-person cover, or third-person targeting with first-person driving... the choice is huge. First-person (FP) street brawls feel more hilariously, violently wrong than ever. The FP combat would even lend itself to a Punch Out-style dedicated mini-game, if Rockstar desired. That's the point: Rockstar, bizarrely, were in danger of becoming trapped in the open-world genre of their own creation, forever tied to third-person conventions.
The FP mode, at a head-dipping, momentum-fuelled step (yes, you can toggle this too) moves Rockstar into the most lucrative arena outside their own: the first-person shooter. Battlefield Hardline might be a first-person cops 'n robbers squad shooter that apes GTA, but Rockstar's game *is* GTA, now liberated to tackle any genre it chooses.
"EVEN WHEN YOU ADJUST TO THE INCREDIBLE NEW VISUALS, THE GAME KEEPS CATCHING YOU OFF GUARD."
GTA Online lets you create FP-only races and death-matches, with the long-anticipated Heists now, apparently, on the near-horizon. Call of Duty-style contests? Almost certainly, and Rockstar have the scope to tackle their rivals on all fronts with custom DLC and user-created FP content.
We haven't even talked about the 100s of new songs our hours of new DJ chatter (Back Street Boys 'Tell me Why', anyone?), or the ability to dip into first-person at any time (tap the PS4 face pad), or the amazing new pedestrian chatter (we tailed a guy fobbing off his boss in a 30 second phone call), or the soft, haunting glow of lightning, or the new smog effects, or the fireflies in the forest, or swimming with a whale.
In fact, let's talk about that. Light coronas sift through the azure water, as plant life ripples to undersea currents and a low, haunting 'HHHHOOOooooo' fills the speakers, and a *giant* whale ghosts past. It's like something from Blue Planet. The undersea sections really benefit from subtle next-gen lighting and physics, as do the crashing waves.
As we say, it's all in our special episode of GTAVoclock. As many facts as we can pack in, plus all the eclectic nonsense, violence and beauty from *our* two hours with new-gen GTAV. How you spend your first two hours with GTAV will be something else entirely, but you almost certainly should. At brutal core, the structure and story rhythms of the PS3 / 360 game remain, but more vivid, and fluid, than ever before; streaked with surprises and myriad new side missions and asides.
You already know whether that's worth £40 of your hard-earned but *seriously*, this is how you do a new-gen update. We can't even think of a witty closing statement, and apologise for this blur of excited words, but that's GTAV at its intoxicating, contrasting best: a mess of extremes, coherent except when it's not, irredeemable yet tender. Y'know, all adjectives to describe the multiplayer game we're forced to play every day: life.
Except, of course, in life we're yet to wield a Rail Gun, one of GTAV's new weapons. Like, holy wow. Rubbish when it misses, and a horror to reload, but a direct hit is absurd. A truck shivers in slow motion under the impact and then... ex-pl-od-es. When GTAV gets it right, it feels a lot like that.
Damnnnnn
